Monday, December 1, 2008

Cyber Monday Adventures

I know all about Black Friday - that frenzied day of rock-bottom prices and fantastic savings that is a total Thanksgiving tradition for my side of the family. But then this year, I started getting all these emails for something called "Cyber Monday."

What? Cyber Monday? As if Black Friday isn't enough, now there's a dedicated day of savings for internet shoppers, too. (No, I did not make this up. Check it out on this Wikipedia page, and this Cyber Monday page.)

Since I still have Christmas shopping to do, I thought I might take advantage of this Cyber Monday thing. After all, I much prefer online shopping to in-store shopping. No lines. No crowds. No pushing. No shoving.

So, I fired up the computer, called in the kiddos, and got ready to surf. (They were off of school. First day of deer season. It's a PA thing.) Then,

"I can't see. Move over!" Push.

"No, you move. I was here first!" Shove.

"Well, it's my computer, so both of you stop crowding me."

Ahem.

On to Plan B. I shut down the computer, fired up the truck, piled in with the kiddos, and headed off to the good ol' brick-and-mortars. Not only did I find some great gifts and save shipping costs, but I also got some great blog fodder:

On the way to the mall, the kiddos and I got into a rapidly devolving conversation about geese. It started with, "Look! There are some geese!" Then we moved on to, "Did you know geese poop every twelve minutes?" And then finally we lurched into: "I bet geese poop while they fly. Flap! Flap! Flap! POOP!"

Not even halfway through our shopping list as we stood in line in a major department store, Handsome Boy and Lovely Girl started sniping at each other. We were right next to the lingerie section. I had a major brainstorm: "OK. If you two don't start behaving right now, I swear I'll get out of this line, go over there and do some bra shopping. And it may take a while. There's a sale." Problem solved.

Noshing on a soft pretzel snack break after the "lingerie incident," Lovely Girl - who's barely in the double digits - dropped this bomb: "So, when can I get a credit card?" Oh. My. Word.

On the way home (and me still not quite recovered from the "credit card incident"), Handsome Boy summed up his three purposes for attending college: wearing pajamas to class, going to parties, and making lots of money when he's out. Lovely. Next time, I handle the college discussions...